Page 16 of The Lady's Guide to Marrying a Viscount
Geneviève notedLord Wulverton’s study of her as he sat in the armchair opposite, lounging back to cross one knee casually over the other. Evidently, the illumination on the train had been sufficiently lacking, for he demonstrated not an inkling of recognition.
He’d even been flirting with her, in the usual condescending way of a man assured of his superiority—willing to indulge the whims of the female recipient. Until her teasing hadseemed to tug at some corner of his conscience, and a shadow had passed over him. Without doubt, he had his secrets—and he was welcome to them. She’d no interest in prying.
He jumped up abruptly, then busied himself with the fire, adding three more logs. “I’m hoping the devil may have some years yet to wait for my company.”
Whatever gloom had overtaken him, he seemed not to wish her to see it.
“Perhaps you’d take me over the house,” she said, laying aside the books and rising to stand beside him. “I’ve only seen the public rooms—nothing of those that have been shut up.”
How tall he was and how large his hand, still gripping the poker. She thought of him gripping something else the day before, when he’d been unaware of her watching him. She’d enjoyed observing him naked, but he was just as pleasing fully clothed, his broad shoulders snug beneath his jacket.
He led the way through hallways and galleries, through rooms decorated with heavy tapestries and ornate rugs—others bare but for dustsheets covering unused furniture.
“Watch your step,” he warned, as the floor of the corridor dropped away. “It’s the same with all these old houses. Various parts have been added over successive generations. They didn’t do the best job of making things line up.”
Geneviève went to the end of the passage, where a long window displayed the northern vista. He came to join her, and they stood looking out at the expanse ofbracken and the vast sky above, streaks of violet-gray moving fast against the paler blue of morning.
“I first thought it a rather desolate place—wild and empty,” Geneviève admitted. “But it has its own beauty. At Rosseline, I love to explore. The vines occupy most of the land beneath the château, but there are hills and woodlands beyond which tempt me for whole days at a time. I often take a lunch in my saddlebag and go out riding.”
“Our moor isn’t like other places—not like other moors, even.” He spoke softly. “You may walk easily for some hours without seeing another person or a dwelling, but the moor is not so barren as it seems. There is life here, in the streams and damp places, and on the hills, where the wild ponies roam. No man lacks for rabbit in his stew. People have lived here since Neolithic times. Not only their cairns and standing stones remain but their stories. We’re closer to the past here. If you visit the circles at Hingston Hill or Yellowmead, you’ll feel that. Like those stones of weathered granite, our moor-dwellers are resilient, born of the rock beneath their feet.”
Geneviève turned to look up at him, wishing to see his expression. “And you’ve returned from your adventures to take on the mantle of your inheritance. Can you live without the conveniences of our modern century, without proper Society even?”
She made bold to taunt him. “Or perhaps you intend to bring electricity to Wulverton Hall and embrace the innovations of our age. Will you lure down the London elite, making Wulvertona sought-after invitation?”
His smile was wry. “If you knew me better it would be the last thing you’d suggest. As to deprivation of comforts, you’d be surprised what I’ve lived without. In returning, I’m hoping to find…what I thought was lost to me.”
“Ah, yes!” Geneviève sighed. “You seek the English idyll of nature—unspoilt and so little inhabited. A place to feed the soul and heal its wounds. A place in which you acknowledge your belonging. It is what all your poets write of, is it not?”
He paused for some moments. “You might put it like that…”
A reverie appeared to envelop him, and they stood in silence, until Geneviève wondered if he’d forgotten she was there at all.
How strangely he behaved.
At last, feeling restless, she coughed and shuffled her feet. It was sufficient to bring him back from wherever his mind had wandered to.
Smiling sweetly, Geneviève asked, “Your family have lived here many generations?”
There was a certain pride in his response. “Almost seven centuries—through fortunes good and bad. We can claim a certain fortitude. It’s the de Wolfe motto in fact,fortis in arduis.”
“Strength in times of trouble.” Geneviève nodded in approval. “It’s good to fight for what you desire.”
She’d had time enough to learn that for herself. No matter what insults or ill judgements were cast upon her, she would endure. Above all things, she knew the importance of tenacity. Her heart was set on returningto Château Rosseline, and with Hugo, Maxim’s heir, as her husband. That was something she intended to fight for. Viscount Wulverton had made no link between her and the woman on the Marseille train. All well and good. Let it remain that way. Meanwhile, she would act her part.
“And has your family braved much trouble?” Geneviève felt doubtful. What strife and suffering had this family endured?
Wulverton Hall was a modest residence in comparison to her château—with its priceless works of art and gilded ceilings, its great vineyards and extensive estates—but these de Wolfes appeared comfortable enough. The land made for poor farming, she imagined, but the sheep flourished. Wulverton Hall came with fifty thousand acres, Hugo had told her.
Moreover, life on the moor was obviously isolated from the machinations of politics. No man with ambition would live here. It was more a place in which to hide from trouble. What strength could be needed when a person buried themselves in obscurity?
If Lord Wulverton sensed her skepticism, he chose to ignore it.
“You’d be surprised, though it’s true that my branch of the family cannot compare in fame to the great de Wolfes of Northumberland, nor to those who settled in Wolverhampton. My grandsire of many generations back, being the younger son of a younger son, chose to forge a new path here in Devonshire, sometime in the fourteenth century. His sheep farming was on a modest scale, though he establisheda dynasty that became stronger with passing decades. The Black Country de Wolfes have always been influential and wealthy, thanks, most recently, to the mining of coal.”
“They are miners?” Geneviève could scarcely contain her mirth. Such a noble family, and involved with such a dirty occupation!
“Rather more than that.” Again, he ignored her taunting manner. “One of my distant ancestors, Gaetan, having fought bravely at Hastings, was made First Earl of Wolverhampton by the Duke of Normandy himself—the first Norman King of England.”
